And as luck would have it, I actually was just talking to another friend about this and he turned up a gnome extension that looks like it does exactly what I need, so it may become a Linux machine yet.

I do still want to do some upgrades and I kind of got to like the server idea though so perhaps I'll be building a new Linux PC and also recycling the old parts into a server

Like a lot of people I have one or two things keeping me tied to windows for now

The main one for me is a little goofy, but my computer is hooked up to my TV and it's synced up to my Philips hue lights.

My other consoles and such work fine through the hue sync box but for some reason the PC does not, so I have to rely on the hue desktop app to get the PC synced to the lights

And of course they don't support Linux, and from what I've seen online WINE and the other usual workarounds don't do the trick either

There's a couple of people out there who have cobbled together alternatives, but none of them are quite where I want them to be yet.